Monsters Under the Bed
by GreyHowler
Summary: Every child is assigned a monster under their bed. After Tina's monster witnesses her father's less than protective actions toward her, he decides to go from monster to guardian angel. Years after Tina forgets her monster's caring actions, he shows up again in her hour of greatest need. Contains graphic descriptions of blood, death, mobs, and monsters
1. Chapter 1

**Hey, all! I know this isn't the update some of you were hoping for. I had to write this for one of my classes (best. project. ever.), so I thought I'd give you something to tide you over until finals are over and I can go back to writing my usual stuff. **

**Technically this would be counted as an original story, but most of my followers are over here and I thought you all might want easy access to something interesting from an author you (hopefully) like. Plus, I just saw an original comic with a plot similar to this (I'm surprised at how popular this trope is; makes me wonder if I plagiarized unknowingly), so I technically get to put it under the Miscellaneous Comics :P**

* * *

February 13, 1976

"I think you're going to have to deal with this one personally, boss," Thornwraith said hesitantly. A relative of the Honey Island Swamp Monster, Thornwraith was covered in thick, slimy fur with four arms and two legs. He was the monster chosen only to slide under the beds of the hardest kids to scare: teenagers. But he had just experienced an exception to this rule.

For the past month, monster after monster had been sent to haunt the room of a single eight-year-old, to no avail. None of them had managed to get the squirt to make a peep. Now he was standing before the lair of the creepiest monster Thorn had ever met: Night Prowler.

Prowler was considered the head honcho of the monsters in the northwestern portion of the United States and, as such, spent most of his time doing what humans would equivocate to paperwork. He was the one who worked out which monsters were assigned to which kids, how often each would visit their assigned kids, and which monsters receive the best rations for their work. Most would call him a very fair boss, but not even those who hated him would dare cross him without immense backup.

Tonight, however, Prowler had taken some time off and curled up in the back of his cave for a well-deserved nap. It was in vain, it seemed.

Prowler opened his watery-yellow eyes to peer through the darkness at Thorn. Prowler's dark color ensured that his eyes were all Thorn could see. Prowler watched the monster shifting nervously at the entrance of the cave and he had to suppress a smile. It always cheered him up to see how much the others feared him.

That was the whole point of this business, after all: to be the scariest monster in the world. Whether a monster reached that status due to brains, brawn, or looks didn't matter. Prowler had the good fortune to possess all three.

Scales scraped along the stone floor as Prowler uncurled his pair of tentacles and stood, flexing his clawed hands. His species was a subclass of basilisk. He had two arms, two legs, and a human-shaped head and torso. However, he was several feet taller and wider than the average adult male human and his entire body was covered in black scales. Two tentacles, each tipped with a thick, tooth-like claw, protruded from his lumbar area. His ears, as well, didn't match a human's; they were long and curved up and around his head in the guise of horns.

Prowler stepped toward the front of the cave so he could properly greet his guest. "What has happened this time?" he asked. A warm feeling of pride filled him as he saw Thorn shiver just the smallest bit at Prowler's voice.

That was probably his best quality. His voice was deep, deep enough to get underneath the skin of any creature that heard it and penetrate down to their bones. He could make it soft and silky, as it was now, or raise it to deafening volumes with a grating, raspy quality.

He couldn't see underneath the mop of grass that covered every inch of Thorn's body, but Prowler was certain the creature had gulped pathetically.

"Have you not been able to fulfill your duty?" asked Prowler. He moved a little farther out of his cave, slowly straightening as he did so.

"I…'ve been trying, sir," stammered Thorn. "I can see she's obviously scared, sir, but nothing I do will get her to scream, sir."

Prowler was almost out of the cave now, still moving deceptively slowly. "And remind me, again, the specifics of your…assignment."

Thorn shifted, clearly wanting to back away from Prowler but unwilling to show weakness. "Tina Morley, sir. Eight years old. Female. Scared of spiders."

"And what are your usual assignments, Thorn?"

"My last one, sir, was an eighteen-year-old boy. No known fears."

Prowler closed the space between himself and Thorn in a split-second. He flung two of his tentacles toward the other monster, driving their razor-sharp points through two of Thorn's forearms and into the stone wall behind him.

"Then why," Prowler roared, "have you been unable to handle a little girl scared of bugs?!"

Thorn managed not to cry out when his arms were impaled and only just managed to restrain the other two from grabbing onto the tentacles and ripping them out; that would only make things worse. Instead, he gritted his teeth and ground out, "I don't know, sir. I haven't…haven't been able to determine that."

Prowler got uncomfortably close to Thorn's face, waiting for the monster to meet his gaze. After a few seconds, Prowler managed to look into Thorn's eyes, into his mind, searching through memories, feelings, and experiences. If Prowler needed to take care of a job that his best monsters couldn't puzzle out, there was no way he was going in blind.

When he was done, Prowler yanked his tentacles from the wall and watched dispassionately as Thorn dropped to the floor. Green swamp fluid started to pool at their feet, but Thorn ignored it and stood back up to face Prowler.

Good. There was hope for this monster yet.

"Clean up your act, Thorn," Prowler growled as he stepped back to prepare to travel through the void. "We have no place for useless monsters." He didn't wait for Thorn's reply.

He let the darkness wrap its loving arms around him and transport him to the room of Tina Morley.

He felt the temperature shift a few degrees warmer and the pressure increase. It had been several millennia since the last time he had had to experience this and it threw him off. When he emerged beneath Tina's bed, he took a few moments to collect himself and examine his surroundings.

The room he appeared in didn't look like a child's room at all. For one thing, it was far too clean. Sure, it had been a while since Prowler had last been in the field, but he was certain all the rooms he had visited before had at least a few toys or books scattered around.

This room had a desk, a chair, and a bed. The floor wasn't carpet as a child's room would usually be; it was hardwood but had no footprints, stains, or dust. The walls were bare of any decorations, no childish scribbles, drawings, or finger-paintings. There wasn't even a single photograph.

Prowler's scales lifted the tiniest bit. There was something wrong here, but he couldn't seem to grasp exactly what it was.

Above him, he could hear Tina shifting in her bed, getting comfortable for the night. Then he heard something else.

Tina sniffled again and stifled a hitch in her breathing. She was already scared.

A crash from outside the closed bedroom door shifted Prowler's attention away from the girl and toward the rest of the house. He could hear shouting now and he could begin to make out words as the people came quickly closer.

"John, please, it's not her fault," said a woman's voice, the quieter of the two. "I told her to go to bed. She has a field trip tomorrow."

"Ah don't care, Sara," a man bellowed, slurring his words a bit. "Ah told 'er to wash the dishes. She didn' wash the dishes."

"Wait, please," pleaded Sara.

There was a pause, then a sharp crack of bone against bone, a cry from Sara, then a dull thump. The man grumbled something, then silence.

Above Prowler, Tina's breath hitched again and there was a sudden rustling of sheets as she scrambled out of bed. Her feet hit the floor followed by her knees and hands. When she ducked her head under the frame, Prowler caught his first look at her face.

Tear-filled, ice-blue eyes stared out at him from a heart-shaped face framed by golden brown hair. The sleeves of the pink nightgown she wore were just a little too short to cover the bruises that dotted her pale wrists and arms.

When she spotted Prowler, she froze. But only for a moment. "Move over," she hissed.

Stunned, Prowler did as she asked, too flabbergasted that she had looked him in the eyes and not wet herself in horror.

Her small body pressed up against his scales and she covered her mouth with both hands, trying desperately to keep the terrified sobs from escaping as tears fell freely from her eyes. But it wasn't the monster she was scared of. It was the human.

A chill ran through Prowler's body. For as long as he had been in this business, he had done his best to prevent situations like these. Children were meant to be scared of the monsters under the bed and go running to their parents for comfort; not scared of the parents and run to the monsters for comfort.

There had been several cases of parental abuse when Prowler had started overseeing his section of the world. H had worked hard to eradicate those cases and trained his monsters to make sure the kids they scared never grew so traumatized that they became abusers. Over the millennia, it had worked; such cases were rare. Rare enough, it seemed, that Prowler's monsters had no idea what abuse looked like or how to stop it.

It was time to rectify that.

The door slammed open and hit the wall with a sharp bang.

"Tina! Where are ya, brat?!" John growled. He reached the small bed in two steps and threw back the covers. There was a pause before blankets were flung around haphazardly.

John dropped heavily to one knee and reached under the bed. He fumbled around clumsily.

Prowler made a decision. Technically, monsters were forbidden to allow adults to see them, except under extenuating circumstances. This counted as extenuating circumstances.

John came dangerously close to snatching Tina's leg. She squeaked and shuffled further under the bed.

"Get out here!" shouted her father.

Carefully, Prowler shuffled himself and Tina around so they switched places. Tina's eyes widened when she felt Prowler's tentacles wrap around her slim waist and slide her to the opposite side of the bed, but she didn't make any noise.

John grunted in victory when he finally grabbed what he thought was Tina's arm. He yanked hard, intending to dangle her there while he screamed in her face. He was very surprised when something other than his daughter was in his grasp.

For a few seconds, he just kept pulling upward, but he never felt the weight of his daughter come to rest in his grip. It just kept coming. Finally, John stopped moving his arm but the dark shape seeping out from under the bed kept getting taller.

John dropped what he now realized was not human flesh but lizard-like scales. Two feet above him, a pair of dull yellow eyes opened in the darkness and glared at him.

"The hell—?" He stumbled backward until he hit the wall.

Prowler slithered his tentacles along the floor, creating an eerie grating sound. "You have broken rules of old," he said darkly. "For that, you must pay."

That wasn't entirely truthful. The rules he was referring to only said that monsters were not to harm children; they said nothing of humans harming other humans. But __this__ human didn't need to know that.

"This is bull—" John interrupted his own statement with a harsh scream.

Prowler had used one of his tentacles to impale John's left arm. The man whimpered pathetically as he used his right hand to scrabble at the claw. Dark blood dripped in a steady flow out of the wound and left a puddle on the floor.

Prowler leaned down further until his mouth rested next to John's ear. "You are sentenced to death." The monster's hand shot forward into John's chest and gripped his heart, ripping it out. It saw it his palm a beat twice more before it seemed to realize it was no longer connected to its body.

Gleefully, Prowler watched as the light faded from John's eyes. He could hear the blood fill the man's lungs until he had to cough it out. It dripped down the corners of his mouth in two perfectly straight streams.

Prowler stepped away from his victim and watched the human slump to the floor. A long dark streak of blood was left on the wall. He heard shuffling behind him.

The monster turned and regarded the small child as she stared up at him with wide eyes. But they weren't wide with fear; they were wide with amazement, wonder, admiration even.

Vaguely, Prowler realized he still had John's heart in his hand. He set it on the floor as he knelt. His tentacles rested on the ground softly, as unthreatening as possible. He opened his arms to Tina. There was nothing he could do to hide his sharp claws and hard scales, but that didn't seem to matter to the girl.

As soon as she saw the invitation, she ran forward and threw herself into the monster's arms. She buried her head in his neck and sobbed her heart out.

Prowler wrapped his arms around her, careful not to accidentally poke her with his claws. The blood on his hand dripped thickly onto her nightgown, staining it in a distinct print. He rumbled deep in his chest, a subsonic hum that vibrated the girl's entire body.

They stayed like that for a long while, until Tina had run out of tears. Gently, Prowler picked up the girl and cradled her in arms, wrapping his tentacles around her for further protection. He stood and walked out of her room, taking her away from the gory scene.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Prowler glanced down at her, unsure how to respond. No one had thanked him…well, ever. Much less one of the children that was supposed to be getting scared. "…You're welcome," he said finally, as softly as he could manage.

Prowler walked out into the brightly lit hallway where he could see Tina's mother, Sara, face down on the floor.

Tina wriggled in Prowler's grasp and he quickly let her down.

"Mother!" she cried. She dropped next to her mother's head and gently touched her hair. "Mother? Please wake up!" She started shaking a shoulder.

Prowler watched silently, unsure if he should tell the girl that he couldn't hear a heartbeat from Sara anymore. Tina's shaking had rolled Sara's body over slightly. Just enough that Prowler could see the woman's disfigured face. The blood had already started to coagulate, there was so little of it. The injury was likely internal.

Tina continued to try to wake her mother up for another few seconds before she finally gave up and dropped her head. She started crying again.

Prowler gently picked her up with his tentacles. She clutched at them desperately as her sobs grew louder. He took her to the living room and sat on the uncomfortably soft couch to let Tina cry. There was nothing else he could do for her. He had no idea how to comfort a human child. He simply sat there and waited.

A few minutes later, he could hear sirens wailing in the distance, coming gradually closer.

Prowler sighed a huff of air and stood again. Tina had stopped crying but she still had her face buried in his shoulder and her arms wrapped around his neck.

Prowler disentangled her and set her on her feet at the front door.

"There are more humans coming to help you, child," he rumbled gently. "Go out to them."

"But," Tina sniffled, "can't I stay with you?" She looked up at him with wet eyes again.

Prowler felt himself hesitating, unsure of himself. That was unusual. He was never unsure of himself. What was it about this little girl that made him change so much in the span of half an hour?

"No, child," he said. "You cannot live where I do."

The sirens were in front of the house now. He didn't have much time left.

He thought for a moment, then stepped to a sideboard where a small jeweled locket sat among several other trinkets. He picked it up by its chain and studied it for a moment.

Its silver coating glinted in the artificial light, several fake crystals encircling the cover. When the lid popped open, a tiny round picture of the girl's family smiled out into the world. It had been taken a few years ago; the girl was much smaller and the father didn't have the swollen face and sunken eyes of a drunk.

Prowler closed the lid with a soft snap and plucked one of his scales from his arm, hiding a wince at the sharp pain, to place it on top of the locket. A breath of magic later and the scale shrank and engulfed the locket in a cloud of darkness. When the cloud faded, the locket and chain had changed to a matte black and the scale had embedded itself into the cover as if it had always been there.

Prowler turned back to the girl and handed her the necklace. "Keep this with you and I will be able to watch over you at all times."

Tina lovingly clutched it in her tiny fist. She nodded her head vigorously. "'Kay," she agreed.

Someone pounded on the door and shouted, "Police! Open up!"

Prowler glared at the door, then looked back at Tina. "I must go now, child. Stay strong."

She nodded several times again.

The monster reached down one last time and wiped a tear from the girl's face before he disappeared in a wisp of black smoke.

The front door broke down seconds later, revealing Tina Morley standing in the entryway, holding a black necklace to her chest.

* * *

February 14, 1976

Charles Hutchings, captain of the small Eilington Oregon Police Department, shut the door to his office and took a seat at his desk. "What's going on, Barnes," he asked, rubbing his forehead. "It's a zoo out there."

Detective Stan Barnes shook his head dumbfoundedly on the other side of the desk.

"It's that murder case we had last night, Hutch."

Hutchings scratched at the two-day stubble on his chin. "That would make sense. We don't get many of those around here. But we're professionals. As small as our town is, we should know better than to stand around gossiping like retired grandmothers."

"Yeah," agreed Barnes, nodding. "But that's not what has them in a tizzy. It's the way they were murdered."

"How so?"

"None of it makes sense…well, a little bit of it does."

"And which bit would that be?"

Barnes slapped a stack of papers down on the captain's desk and rested his index finger on the top page. "The wife's death. That's it."

The captain waved his hand dismissively. "He smashed her head in, right?"

"Basically. His ring managed to hit her in just the right way that her eye socket shattered and some fragments lodged themselves in her brain. A lucky shot of the rarest kind."

"Not a fun way to go," muttered the Captain. He leaned back in his chair.

"True, but in my opinion, the guy had it worse."

"How so?"

"He had his heart ripped out."

"What, you mean someone cut him open and pulled it out?"

Barnes shook his head emphatically and stood up straight. "No, I mean Derek down in autopsy says someone managed to smash through the ribs—they're completely shattered—and grip this man's heart with one hand…or…with __something__…and pull it out in one piece. Other than having the veins and shit torn away from it, there isn't a scratch on it."

Hutchings was silent, contemplating this. "…Impressive," he whispered.

"Not just 'impressive,' Hutch," continued Barnes. "It's nearly impossible. I've asked around. The culprit would have to be immensely strong, not to mention big. One of the med students showed me a life-sized replica of the heart…that sucker's pretty big. I could get my hand around it, but I'd have a hell of a time getting it out when it's covered in blood and fluids and connected to something. Not to mention getting through the ribs." He took a breath, "I don't think any regular guy walking down the street could do that."

"Well, then you should only have a few suspects."

"I don't have any suspects. No one who would have the motive, or was in the vicinity, nothing like that. Hell, I don't think we have anyone __living__ here with the physicality to do something like this."

"So it could be a tourist. Morley was known for the abuse, right? So what if some guy walking along the street heard some commotion and decided to be a hero?"

"It's possible, but don't you think people would have noticed if they had seen someone like that walking around? We're a small town, Hutch. People talk."

"You think I don't know that?" Hutchings grumbled.

"And there's the kid's testimony, too," added Barnes.

"Oh? What's that say?"

"She says it was a monster. Taller than her father and had four arms and was covered in scales."

Hutchings blinked and rested his elbows on the desk, hands folded in front of him. "Well, damn. A lot of good that's going to do for you. Could the guy have been wearing some kind of outfit to make it look like he had—what did you say?—four arms and scales?"

"It's possible. But she said it was already there when she crawled under there to hide from her dad."

"…The guy was under the bed?"

Barnes nodded.

"So could he be the lady's lover? Morley came home drunk and found out his wife was having an affair? Went into the room to beat the hell out of the guy and ended up getting the tables turned on him?"

"It's possible. I'll have to ask around, but I didn't get the impression that Mrs. Morley was the type to have an affair. Too scared of her deadbeat husband."

"That's the guy you've been trying to get for a while, isn't he? But nothing would stick 'cause she wouldn't testify."

"Yeah. Guess it's too late now." Barnes plopped down into the guest chair on his side of the desk and buried his head in his hands. "And that poor girl…Tina's probably traumatized for life now."

"You did the best you could, bud," said Hutchings. "It could have been worse. She'd probably be traumatized more if she spent the rest of her life with that bastard."

"But now she has to grow up without her mom and dad. And that scene is going to haunt her forever."

Both officers leaned over to look out the glass window that separated them from the rest of the precinct and eyed the little girl sitting on the bench directly across from the office. She swung her legs innocently, staring down at the black necklace in her hand lovingly.


	2. Chapter 2

September 21, 2006

Tina braced herself when she saw Liam's fist swing toward her face again. She felt her neck twinge as her head whipped to the side. She coughed and spat a wad of phlegm and blood next to the chair she was handcuffed to. After another second to compose herself, she turned back to her captor—one she might have called a friend in another life.

"That was weak, Liam. I thought you were better trained than that," she sneered.

"We're just getting started, Ava," replied Liam, still flexing his hand out from the punch. He wore plain jeans and an Aeropostale t-shirt, typical for a twenty-something kid in New York.

He bared his teeth in a snarl. "That's probably not even your real name, is it, __Ava__?" He growled the last word like it was the most disgusting bug in the world.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Tina snapped back.

As calm a façade as she was trying to put on, her mind was racing. She had been undercover in the O'Brien Family mob for the past three years, slowly inching her way through the food chain to find and arrest the top dogs…and her cover had just been blown. Half of her brain was feverishly trying to figure out how that was possible while the other half struggled to think of a way out of this mess.

There was no way she had been the one to reveal herself. Her check-ins were only once a week and she was due for another two days from now. If Liam and his goons had followed her to the last check-in, they would have grabbed her immediately after so the officers would have no idea something was wrong until it was too late.

It had to have been a mole in the department. There was no other explanation. She had been at this for too long and the attack had been too sudden for it to be anything else. It couldn't be anyone too high up. Liam was interrogating her instead of outright killing her, so he had no idea how much she knew about anything, and he needed her to tell him who else was a cop.

Another punch interrupted her train of thought. It was quickly followed by another and Tina felt her nose crack. She coughed a little harder this time.

"Enough," she heard someone say.

She looked up to see a shadow separate itself from the rest of the room.

"Logan," she purred. "I should have known you were the one calling all the shots. You were too innocent for it to be true."

Logan grinned at her. "That's what made it work. Who would believe that a 26-year-old orphan could be running a mob that's been active for more than a decade? Add a little sob story about parents who were murdered by rivals and it all comes up in a nice package that's the perfect cover story."

He was right, though. Tina had never thought Logan could be anywhere near smart or experienced enough to run things around here. She had even been making arrangements to get him out of the O'Brien Family for good.

Logan stepped further into the room, spreading his hands in a questioning manner. "But don't you think we've been at this for long enough?" he asked sweetly. "It's clear this isn't working. Our pretty little Ava doesn't care about her face all that much…as she's proven time and time again. Why don't we switch it up?"

His hand disappeared behind his back and pulled a semi-automatic pistol from his waistband. He held it nonchalantly and lifted it in her general direction.

Tina gritted her teeth. Death was one of the few things she was truly frightened of—she had learned how to take a beating when she had lived with her biological father. But as scary as death was, she was more frightened of what would happen to the other undercover officers if she gave them up. She knew of five of them and she had recognized one guarding the door when she had been dragged in for her interrogation.

She could withstand this. She wasn't sure if they could.

She glared up at Logan. "Do your worst," she baited.

He stared calmly back at her. There was no hint of compassion in his eyes. Just an emotionless cold. He pulled the trigger without warning.

Tina screamed as she felt the bullet tear through her leg, shattering bone and ripping arteries and muscles. Blood dripped through her pant leg and collected in a puddle under her chair.

She fell forward and stared at the blood. It reminded her so much of that night. It all came rushing back to her: her father's voice, her mother's yell, and there was something else. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. She had believed in it with such determination when she was younger but she had gradually forgotten about it over time.

Her hair shifted, drawing her attention to her shirt. She could see her locket pressing up against the inside fabric. She had never gone a day without that locket. She wasn't quite sure why, now that she thought about it. Though most would think she'd hate the sight of something that held the picture of the man that had murdered her mother and beaten her nearly every day of her life up until his death, it was very precious to her. What would happen to it if she died tonight?

She moaned as a fresh wave of pain shivered up her leg. She forced herself to tune back into the world, although everything in her peripheral vision was blurred out of focus. She could see Logan leaning in toward her.

He cupped her chin in one palm and tapped her temple with the barrel of the gun. "Come now, Ava. Don't tell me that was all it took to break you." He dropped his hand and pressed his thumb into the bullet hole. A stream of fresh blood fell to the floor.

Tina grit her teeth to keep from outright screaming, although she couldn't hold back the groan that managed to slip past her control.

A shrill scream rose outside the door. All heads whipped toward the noise.

Logan gestured to the door with his gun. "Go see what that was."

Liam stepped toward the door, pulling his own gun out as he did, and opened the door cautiously. Nothing happened for a few seconds and Liam opened the door wider. "Nobody's here, boss."

"Well, where'd they go?" asked Logan patronizingly.

"I—"

Something black wrapped itself around Liam's body and tugged him through the door. Liam's scream echoed through the room. A sickening crunch cut the scream off.

The few goons that were in the room during the interrogation pulled an assortment of weapons from hiding places in their clothes and huddled together, although no one made a move toward the door. They didn't need to; their attacker was coming to them.

Two black tentacles slithered through the door and pushed it aside. The creature that followed had to duck its head to fit through and when it straightened, it towered over the tallest of the humans by several feet.

Two horns curved over the top of its head, adding to its height, and had layer upon layer of scales that covered its body and tentacles. It had a flat face with slits for nostrils and watery-yellow eyes. Its arms were so long they reached where its knees might have been if it were human, each hand tipped with five razor-sharp claws.

It opened its mouth in a snarl, showing off long fangs dripping with blood. Then it spoke.

"Foolish humans," it growled in a voice so deep it sent a shiver down Tina's spine. "You dare hurt my charge?! You dare touch what's mine?!" Its voice gradually rose as it spoke until it vibrated the ground.

"What the hell is that thing?" screamed one of the nameless goons.

"Kill it!" shouted Logan in response. By now he had inched his way behind Tina, as far away from the monster as he could get.

The mobsters opened fire, but the bullets merely bounced off the thing's scales.

It roared in challenge, drowning out the yells of its soon-to-be victims, and charged forward. Its tentacles whipped themselves into a frenzy, flicking aside each human as if they were flies. One of the tentacles managed to skewer two of the men at once before it flung them away.

They hit the wall with such force that Tina could hear their spines break on impact. Within seconds, the wall was littered with several bloody smears, each leading to a mangled body.

Only Logan was left. He frantically fired the rest of his bullets at the monster uselessly, yelling a battle cry the entire time. As soon as the gun clicked empty, he started fumbling to reload it.

The monster stepped toward him and Tina deliberately, visibly taking pleasure in the fear that radiated throughout the room. Another growl rumbled through its chest.

Tina snapped out of her shock and started struggling for all she was worth. But with her hands and feet handcuffed to each leg of the chair, there wasn't much she could do. She propped her feet up and started to scoot the chair back with her toes, but didn't make it more than a few inches before she toppled back with a crash and a shout.

She flipped herself to the side just in time to see the monster closing in on her. Its eyes bore into hers, searching her soul. She struggled desperately, rubbing her wrists raw against the cuffs. She listened to the rasping of the monster's scales on the concrete. Logan cursed the gun, the magazine, and himself as he frantically reloaded.

Nothing either of them did slowed the monster down. "Soon it was mere feet in front of Tina. A tentacle moved and she shut her eyes and let out a throat-wrenching scream.

But nothing happened.

When she opened her eyes again, the monster had passed her by and was pursuing Logan. She craned her neck to watch, too dumbfounded to do anything else.

Logan had emptied the second magazine, then dropped the gun to the floor. He pulled a hunting knife from his boot and clutched it in one hand. "Come and get me, you monster," he mumbled.

But Tina could see the beads of sweat covering his forehead. Logan wasn't fooling anyone. He was out of his league and he knew it.

Surprisingly, the monster didn't finish him off as quickly as it had the other humans. Instead, it slowly stalked its way toward him, backing Logan up until he hit the wall.

Logan swiped his knife at the creature, but it dodged the attack easily and caught Logan's wrist with one of its hands. Its grip was so tight, Tina could see the claws pierce skin to draw blood.

It leaned toward him and fixed Logan in place with its eyes. It stared at him for a few moments before it spoke softly, almost sadly. "You have not learned from your monsters, young one." It paused before continuing in a growl. "And now you have crossed a line I'll allow no human to return from."

The monster's hand shot forward and plunged into Logan's chest with a crunch. It pulled back out just as quickly, clutching something in its fist.

Logan coughed and looked down at the gaping hole where his heart used to be. He toppled forward without another word.

The heart dropped to the ground with a soft splat. Then the monster turned toward Tina again.

She whimpered and tried to scoot back some more. The cuffs clinked against each other and the chair scraped uselessly against the floor.

The monster kept coming after her but with a less determined stride than before. Logan's blood dripped from his hand, leaving a trail as the monster strode toward Tina.

"No, wait. Please. I haven't done anything. I'm a cop." She babbled incoherently at the monster, desperately hoping the thing had some sense of justice. She stopped when she heard a soft thrumming.

The rumbling—a purr—got louder as the monster opened its mouth, then seamlessly turned into words as it spoke again. "Fear not, small one. I will not harm you."

"You expect me to believe that after everything you did?" she scoffed.

The monster stopped in its tracks. A peculiar look crossed its face as if it were confused. "Yes?" it asked. The tentacles slithered along the ground toward her.

"Don't touch me!" Tina screamed.

The monster ignored her. The tentacles reached the chair and wrapped around her legs. To her surprise, instead of slowly crushing her as she expected, the tentacles entwined themselves around the handcuffs and shattered them one by one.

Within seconds Tina was out of the chair and kneeling on the ground as the monster towered over her.

"What do you want?" she ground out. Now that the shock was wearing off, her leg throbbed with a vengeance. She gripped her thigh, trying to work up the courage to put enough pressure on it to slow the bleeding.

It tilted its head a bit as it considered her. It didn't answer her, though. Just knelt and reached toward her.

Tina backpedaled away from it, using both hands to scoot back as fast as she could.

It growled and lunged forward to grab her ankle in one huge hand and tugged her back toward itself.

She yelped and grabbed at its wrist. "Wait, don't," Tina protested weakly.

It reached forward with its other hand and covered her wound. It's grip suddenly tightened excruciatingly.

Tina screamed. She scrabbled desperately at its hand, trying to pry its fingers away. It felt like the monster was crushing her leg. Hot tears streamed down her face and she groaned as the grip got tighter and tighter.

Then it let go as suddenly as it had grabbed her. Her leg still ached, but the fire that had been coursing through her body had lessened tremendously. A pitch-black strip encircled the wound, looking like a bad fashion statement. Except for the drying blood around the strip, Tina could barely tell there was anything wrong with her leg.

She managed to pry her eyes away from the strip and finally looked up at the monster. Emotion welled up in her chest so tightly she couldn't breathe. She wanted to thank it, but couldn't seem to get the words past her thick tongue.

It stared back down at her serenely and started that purr in its chest again. Its gaze softened and it reached forward with a claw. It moved with a grace and gentleness that something that large and terrorizing shouldn't have. It touched Tina's face, wiping away a tear that hadn't quite made it all the way down her cheek. The claw moved down until it had found her locket and held it in its palm delicately, lifting it slightly. They both stared at it for a long moment.

Realization started to bloom in the back of Tina's mind. It was interrupted, though, when the claw jerked back suddenly.

Footsteps and voices filled the halls outside the room. The rumble the monster was making turned into a vicious growl as it turned its head toward the door. The tentacles came to life and steadied themselves in preparation to attack.

The muffled voices got louder and someone slammed open the door to the room. A fully-geared SWAT team filed into the room, sweeping the area with their guns. After the first three soldiers registered what exactly was in the room, they all came to a halt.

The monster flexed its claws and swung its tentacles. It let out an ear-piercing roar that shook the ground and rained bits of plaster down on them.

The SWAT members yelled and started to back up through the door again.

"Stop! No!" shouted Tina after the monster's cry had died down. "They're here to help."

The monster glanced back at her, then stared at the tactical team just outside the door. It growled at them one last time before it disappeared in a cloud of black nothingness.

* * *

**What'd you think? I'm not quite satisfied with it yet. I think I'm going to write another chapter or two where Tina and Prowler just interact with each other. I had some of my family beta read for me and their most common complaint was that they were unsatisfied that they didn't get confirmation that Tina remembered Prowler from her childhood (she did, just not until she got over the shock of being undercover, weeded out, shot, rescued by a mythical creature, and rescued by SWATT). **

**I didn't get to write that part because the deadline was coming up and this was supposed to be a short story ten pages long. It ended up being fourteen pages long but that's okay because I don't think my professor even read the darn thing. **

**So this will be a side project for me and I'll probably add a couple chapters who-knows-when. So for now I'm marking it as complete. **

**See you next time!**

**-GH**


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